The Entity Mapper
by
Anne Luther

The ENTITY MAPPER is an open source web application for visualizing qualitative data as an interactive node-link diagram. By abstracting away the time-consuming process of constructing a visualization manually, the tool allows the researcher to focus on deriving insights from their data through an instant upload format. It features user authentication, dataset caching, and an integrated administration interface for dataset management.

Once data has been uploaded by a user, its appearance can be globally configured in a variety of ways. This includes setting the visibility of the various "entity types", specifying how their descendants appear (as linked nodes or "packed"), and assigning them a color. Additionally, users can control whether others see the datasets they've uploaded through a public/private visibility setting.

Currently, data upload support is limited to ATLAS.ti, however we hope to add support for additional qualitative data analysis programs in the future. Until that time, we hope support for the leading application in this domain gives the ENTITY MAPPER appeal to the qualitative analyst. ATLAS.ti's XML export can be used to export a project at anytime, and with this file new datasets can be easily added to the Entity Mapper (and existing ones updated).